{"id":255206,"date":"2007-08-28T15:30:19","date_gmt":"2007-08-28T15:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2007\/08\/28\/big-issues-at-calder-oneworld-classics\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T17:38:44","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T17:38:44","slug":"big-issues-at-calder-oneworld-classics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2007\/08\/28\/big-issues-at-calder-oneworld-classics\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Issues at Calder-Oneworld Classics"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a lot that could be written about John Calder—both good ad bad. He’s done a lot for world literature, yet has run into issues at various times involving not making royalty payments, going bankrupt, etc. That said, he’s the perfect representative of a classic, old-school publisher who is half-genius and half-crook. <\/p>\n

Recently, his list was sold to Oneworld Classics, and the hope was that Oneworld would reissue Calder’s stellar backlist, which would be a great service for readers everywhere. <\/p>\n

Well, from this note in the recent TLS<\/i><\/a> is sounds like things aren’t as clean-cut as they may have seemed:<\/p>\n

\n

A curious \u201cAnnouncement\u201d appeared in the August 16 issue of the London Review of Books.<\/i> It was paid for by the French publishers Editions Gallimard and Les Editions de Minuit, and referred to an advertisement in the July 19 issue of the same journal, in which Oneworld Classics of Richmond, Surrey, offered \u201cA New Reading Experience\u201d. The experience involved the publication of \u201cmainstream and lesser-known European classics\u201d, including Canti<\/i> by Giacomo Leopardi, in a dual-language edition, and the \u201cunexpurgated\u201d Lady Chatterley\u2019s Lover<\/i>. Next to these were advertised Journey to the End of the Night<\/i> by Louis-Ferdinand C\u00e9line, Moderato Cantabile<\/i> by Marguerite Duras, Jealousy<\/i> by Alain Robbe-Grillet, and multiple works by Samuel Beckett and Eug\u00e8ne Ionesco. These were on offer \u201cfrom the Calder list\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So after this ad appeared highlighting a number of Gallimard and Minuit authors, the two publishers issued the following statement:<\/p>\n

\n

Gallimard and Minuit hereby confirm that they recognize no right whatsoever on the part of Oneworld Classics to these authors.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Which is a pretty big deal for a number of reasons. <\/p>\n

\n

The issue is complex, but a source at Gallimard tells us that it involves \u201cJohn Calder Publishers Limited (company number 1227392) which, according to our information \u2013 though John Calder did not inform us of this at the time \u2013 went into liquidation in 1991 and was dissolved on August 25, 1992\u201d. The name of the liquidator is supplied. According to the source, contracts between Calder and the French publishers \u201cwere nontransferable and state that bankruptcy automatically invalidates the contracts\u201d. The existing stock \u201cshould be pulped or, if allowed to be, sold out\u201d, but \u201cin no case can the works be reprinted or the rights be sub-licensed or transferred to others, all publication rights having reverted to the Proprietor\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

According to the same TLS<\/i> piece, Gallimard offered Oneworld Classics the opportunity to “offer modest advances and sign new contracts for world-literature masterpieces,” but apparently these offers never arrived. <\/p>\n

\n

We asked Oneworld for comment. They forwarded a brief message from John Calder: \u201cGallimard\u2019s and Minuit\u2019s claims are wrong. The rights are still with Calder Publications.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a lot that could be written about John Calder—both good ad bad. He’s done a lot for world literature, yet has run into issues at various times involving not making royalty payments, going bankrupt, etc. That said, he’s the perfect representative of a classic, old-school publisher who is half-genius and half-crook. Recently, his list […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[1836,5356,5366,1646,5376],"class_list":["post-255206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-cwp","tag-john-calder","tag-oneworld-classics","tag-review","tag-tls"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328406,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255206\/revisions\/328406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}